GIGABYTE’s GPU Servers Help Improve Oil & Gas Exploration Efficiency

The oil & gas industry is using HPC (High Performance Computing) to assist in the exploration of new extraction sites. A large number of complex 2D and 3D images and other data is gathered during the geological survey process. Using the powerful computing capabilities of a server, this huge amount of data can be rapidly and accurately analyzed to determine the most suitable drilling locations, helping to reduce the cost of oil & gas exploration and extraction.《Glossary： What is HPC?》

Building a server that delivers maximum computing performance requires increased GPU densities for accelerated computing power. However, a server equipped with multiple GPU cards also generates a higher amount of thermal energy, and requires a more efficient cooling system to maintain stable operation. Therefore, many companies are adopting liquid immersion cooling to enhance the heat dissipation efficiency of their high density servers.《Glossary： What is Immersion Cooling?》

A French geosciences research company provides services such as geophysical data imaging and seismic data analysis to their customers in the earth sciences and oil & gas mining industries. 

In order to improve the performance of their image recognition and data analytics processing, and to deliver more accurate exploration information in real-time, the company decided to upgrade their data center computing hardware. However, they needed servers that would be compatible with their pre-existing oil-immersion cooling racks, resulting in design restrictions. As a leader in HPC technology, GIGABYTE was able to provide customization services for our GPU-accelerated servers.《Recommend for you：In-Depth Information About GIGABYTE’s G-Series GPU Server Products》

The geosciences research company needed their new servers to meet the following requirements:
● Be able to install as many GPU cards as possible in a reduced-length 1U server chassis
● Designed to be smoothly placed into a special oil-immersion cooled rack
● Designed for AMD’s Rome processor platform

Due to the restrictions of their data center’s immersion cooling racks, the geosciences research company required 1U-height servers. However, because of system design and heat dissipation issues, many 1U servers could only support a maximum of 4 GPU cards. This was not enough to meet the customer’s needs, and they hoped to find a server with an even higher accelerated computing density.

As a leader in HPC, GIGABYTE used our professional R&D capabilities to overcome the aforementioned issues and build an ultra-high density GPU-accelerated server for the customer. A server that can support up to 6 GPU cards in a 1U chassis was unprecedented, smashing everyone’s preconceptions about the capabilities of a 1U server – opening a new chapter in HPC innovation and demonstrating yet again GIGABYTE’s amazing technological proficiency.

GIGABYTE also customized the enclosure of each GPU card, increasing the air flow contact area to greatly improve cooling efficiency. The server’s cooling system was optimized in order to cope with the thermal output of 6 GPU cards, and the motherboard interface was also carefully designed to ensure stable operation when connected to devices such as processing chips, memory, hard drives and expansion cards. This design was then comprehensively tested to ensure that the high-speed transmission quality between the GPU and the CPU was maintained.

The servers purchased by the geosciences research company were to be installed into special oil-immersion cooling racks, which were very different from the operating environment of a traditional data center. Therefore, after sending out a sample unit, GIGABYTE engineers immediately went to visit the customer to observe testing and provide any related technical assistance.

GIGABYTE not only provided a customized GPU-accelerated server to deliver maximum computing performance to our customer, but also observed the installation process where the customer utilized a machine boom to hoist the server into the oil-immersion cooling unit. Therefore, GIGABYTE proposed the following modifications:
■ Modified server chassis carrying handles to make them more suitable to be clamped by a machine boom, lowering maintenance costs
■ Modified power button design to avoid it being pressed due to accidental collision
■ Reducing the number of screws within the server chassis or modifying them to be tool-less (hand-adjusted), in order to help prevent loose screws falling into the bottom of the immersion cooling unit, which are not easy to retrieve and could cause system damage
■ Replacing internal wiring, removing some wiring materials that could become corroded after being immersed in oil for a long time, causing a short circuit.

When the geosciences research company decided to upgrade their server hardware, they showed a clear interest in AMD’s processor platform. Therefore, they naturally decided to contact GIGABYTE, who is not only a technology leader in the field of HPC and is adept at building GPU-accelerated servers far superior to the competition, but is also a first-tier manufacturer of AMD EPYC processor server products:
●The world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date AMD EPYC server product line
● GIGABYTE’s servers equipped with 2nd Gen. AMD EPYC processors have broken world records in computing performance
●The fastest time-to-market and optimization of 2nd Gen. AMD EPYC server products, including the introduction of edge computing servers

GIGABYTE has developed two important tools for server management:
■ GIGABYTE Management Console
GIGABYTE’s Management Console is based on AMI’s MegaRAC SP-X management platform, enabling real-time monitoring and management of the server, with a simple-to-use graphical interface and a comprehensive set of management functions.
■ GIGABYTE Server Management (GSM)
GSM allows for remote management and monitoring of multiple servers, and is compatible both with IPMI and Redfish API.

GIGABYTE provides our management tools completely free of charge to help customers implement comprehensive management of their servers, and also has strived to satisfy several of their key requirements: firstly, the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) can support the latest version of Redfish API, and also will soon support OpenBMC open-source management software, which can be installed and updated at any time. 《Glossary：What is BMC?》

From first discussions about the new server deployment, through the purchasing and customization process until delivery & testing, GIGABYTE continuously demonstrated professional technical abilities and customer-orientated service, resulting in the geosciences research company being very satisfied and even earning high praise from the company’s CTO: “GIGABYTE responded rapidly, providing well-designed server products and excellent service”.

The demand for new deployments of immersion-cooled high-density servers using immersion cooling systems is constantly increasing. GIGABYTE can provide complete server solutions to help customers resolve their problems, and will continue to deliver industry leading professional technology and design services together with optimized system and performance tuning, providing high-quality and reliable server products to become a valued partner of our customers in a multitude of different industries.

Learn More：
《Immersion cooling solution in the semiconductor industry》
《As Good as Gold – High Performance Computing Accelerates Oil Extraction》
《How Can High Performance Computing Render Art and Imagination? 》